22 o 0 II p R a F I L c 5 AHOY, LISTER.INE! X o UND 1931 American yacht- ing had reached what appeared to be its nadir Some of the most seasoned sailors of Newport waters and the Sound sat gloomily on their club- house verandas overlooking more or less deserted boat landings and agreed with one another that even a chap in a po- sition to layout a few hundred thousand dollars on a boat would be un wise to do so, because of what the masses might think. Clubs which had been putting up ornate trophies and silver services for races and regattas now were offer- ing austere woo] pennants, which were worn on cabin bulkheads as the hair shirts of a persecuted nobility. A chill was on the sport, and it was espec1al- ly biting in the field of the J boats, those expensive sailing vessels which are known to outsiders principally as con- testants for the America's Cup. Nobody knows what might have hap- pened to international yacht racing if it hadn't been for Gerard B. Lambert, who, although a Johnny-come-lately to ailing, was eager to help save his coun- try's face as an impressive contestant in J -boat competition. \V orking heroically on this neglected patriotic mission, Lam- bert and the few staunch yachtsmen \vho kept faith in the cause appear to have been more successful as salvagers than the politicos churning about \Vashing- ton on .more publicized missions. Yacht racing 'has survived and Sopwith is go- ing to challenge again soon, whereas the nation is still fingering the counterpane. Lambert seems to have been an in- strument of destiny in his historic rôle. .l\. year before the crash he had sold out his interest in the Listerine mouthwash business for around twenty-five millions and had put his money in Liberties and other conservative bonds, which few buyers wanted in those optimistic times. rrhen he went into yachting with the fervor of an early Chris6an going off to the Crusades. When the depression struck, Lambert scarcely noticed it. He spent money like a man who has twenty- fi ve million dollars. Besides his fortune he had determination and an ingratiating charm. His former business associates were amazed, nevertheless, when they read of his going on cruises with the Charles Francis Adamses, father and son, and with George Nichols, a son- in-law of J. P. Morgan. They had told him he would never be accepted by the big yachting men. Had Lambert cared about the state of mind of his former husiness associates, he might have pointed out to them that they had insisted back in 1921 that money could not be made out of the word "halitosis." But Lam- bert had no time for such satisfactions. He went on buying expensive yachts, n1aking friends with the J -boat men, and patiently learning all he could about how to sail. Most yachtsmen start with a dinghy and work up cautiously to something larger. Lambert had already begun his yachting career in 1927 by buying the three-masted auxiliary schooner Atlantic from Cornelius Vanderbilt, and in 1928 he bought the famous America's Cup contender Van1tie. Two years later he got his first Cup-class experience running Vanitie as a trial horse to Harold S. Vanderbilt's Enterprise. In 1934 his position as a yachtsman was established when, at the request of T. O. M. Sop- with, the challenger, he piloted Vanitie against the Britisher's Endeavour in tuning-up races on this side. Even more momentous things were ahead for Lambert. The Cup races themselves, which were won by Van- derbilt's Rainbow, turned into an em- barrassing fiasco. In the fourth contest Sopwith brought a claim of foul against Vanderbilt. A dispute followed and Sopwith, describing himself as "disillu- sioned," returned home in a huff at the end of the Cup series. Most yachting people here seemed to feel that Amer- ican sportsmanship needed vindication, and Gerard Lambert supplied it. He bought the J-boat Yankee from a Bos- ton syndicate, which had paid $500,000 for her construction a few years before, and took her abroad the n xt year for the J -boat regattas during the British season. It was the first time an Amer- ican had taken part in this foreign racíng since 1894. Yankee and Endeavour met in most of the races, the American boat, with Lambert actively in charge, winning eight firsts and the British nine. No discord marred the season and Lam- bert and Sopwith became close friends. The climax of the visit, and the high point of Lambert's career as a yachts- n1an to that date, came during Cowes \Veek when he was invited to din- ner by King George and Queen Mary aboard the royal yacht Victoria and AI- hert. Later in the week, the King came .... :.: .;.....:. .. ' CI:L '-5. f<<' .;.,..;..';..., /". , " y '> 1Ji J'" \ ",þ' :": fi t " (;erard B. Lambert over and spent an hour aboard Yankee, inspecting her gadgets and rig and mak- ing friendly conversation. It was the first time in eighty-four years that a British sovereign had visited an Ameri- can racing yacht. When Lambert's mast snapped in his last race the King sent him a telegram expressing joy that no one had been injured in the mishap. That had never happened to an .L lneri- can yachtslnan before. Mollified by the whole affair, Sop- with forgot his pique and challenged again last year. Lambert's work, in a sense, was done. He had proved himself a capable if not quite an expert J -boat skipper, and America and England were friends again. Recently he aroused much well-bred admiration by announcing that this summer he would lay up his J boats and enter the International One-Design Class with a 33-foot sloop. It was considered a brave move, because Lalnbert's position in J-boating was fairly secure, since he was opposed only by a handful of very wealthy men. In the smaller-boat class he will run up against scores of yachtsmen, mostly less affluent than the J -boat men but some- times better sailors. I N appearance, Lambert, at fifty-two, is both handsome and aristocratic and somehow resembles an old-style Mississippi River gambler of the sort who played square and would die for a lady's honor. He is a slim, tanned six- footer, slightly stooped, and has gray eyes. He keeps his gray hair slicked and he has a neatly tnmmed gray mus- tache and long, swift fingers. As might be guessed from his career as a yachts- man, he takes great delight in doing things which amaze. He is an amateur magician and when around children pretends to extract coins from their ears.